zombie_apocalypse_ready/set?id=111941474

After a while of just laying on my bed, I heard Rick and Daryl come back with the others. They went to go meet with the Governor, one of the things that I learned about the other night. I looked around the corner and into Carl;s room to make sure that he wasn't there, and looked into my reflection. My eyes were red and puffy. I'd have to just listen to what Rick has to say from here, because I know if Beth of Carl saw me like this, they would make a big deal out of it.

I see Rick walk into the cell block and pace a little, everybody staring at him for some kind of conformation over what exactly happened today. I look down the stairs and see everybody, though they don't acknowledge me because they don't see me. I do see Carl look around for me, but I'm not there. I lean up against the railing from above, so I'm not looking down at them, and just listen carefully. "So I met this Gov'nor. Sat and talked with him for a while." He starts. "Just the two of ya?" asks who I'm assuming is Merle, though I was never properly introduced. I hear him mumble something but I can't make it out.

"He wants the prison. Wants us gone. Dead." I look around me at the empty floor I'm sitting on. I never thought of a prison as a home. I've never really thought of anywhere as a home, as we moved so much when I was a kid. But this place... it's kept these people safe. Now they could be trading that in. I could be trading that in. I'm a part of this group. Like hell am I going to let this place get taken from us. Us.

"He wants us dead... for what we did to Woodbury." He takes a long pause, everybody taking in their own thoughts on the matter. "We're going to war."

Everybody disperses, and I see Carl look at me from the corner of his eye. He tips his hat and keeps walking wherever he was headed, leaving myself alone to my thoughts.

What have I gotten myself into?

Basically everybody is outside about a half an hour later. I'm in, laying on my bunk. I was waiting for my face to deflate itself, but I dozed off for about fifteen minutes. When I woke up, nobody was here except for Carol and Beth, who were both having polite chit-chat inside the mess hall. When I walked in, they smiled at me, and I noticed the little baby girl in Beth's arms.

I walked over, astonishment on my face. "This is Judith?" I ask, touching her cheek lightly with my finger. Her skin is so soft. Clean. Clean from dirt, but clean from the world. "Can I hold her?"

"You know how?" asks Carol. "Yeah, I had a baby cousin. His name was Brian. He was cute. Looked a lot like what she looks like now." I say, the smile plastered on my face from this new found innocence in front of me.

Beth passes Judith over to me and my smile gets softer. "Hi, Judith. I'm Emma." I whisper lightly to her. I start walking around the table and she plays with one of my fingers. I immediately start singing. It's a song that my mom used to sing to me when I was kid whenever I had nightmares. She had such a lovely voice. Always said that I got mine from her.

watch?v=pPv3O2kQb...

"Hold me close and hold me fast
This magic spell you cast,
is La Vie En Rose.

When you kiss me, heaven sighs
and though I close my eyes,
I see la vie en rose.

When you press me to your heart
I'm in a world apart,
a world where roses bloom.

And when you speak, angels sing from above.
Everyday words seemed to turn into love songs.

Give your heart and soul to me
and life will always be,
la vie en rose."

When I finished singing, Beth and Carl started clapping from behind me. I turn around and smile, only then noticing Carl standing in the doorway. I blush a little, knowing very well that he just heard me sing. "You have a beautiful voice," he says.

"Thanks," I say, smiling. "It's been a while. It feels good. God knows before now it was my life."

"Was that La Vie En Rose? By Edith Piaf?" asks Carol.

I beam when she recognizes it. "Yeah! It is! Man, you wouldn't believe the number of people that I sang that song to who didn't know it. Most didn't even know Edith Piaf."

"I recognized the words, but it just sounded so much more mellow." she says, smiling.

"Yeah, this was my mom's rendition," I say, the thoughts of my mom singing it filling my senses. Part of me wants to burst out into tears right then, but I know that her singing this song to me was a happy memory. She would take out her ukulele or guitar and play it for me, until I learned how to play it and memorized the words. We would both sing it every night before we slept. We never lost track of it. Not even when the world lost itself.

Only when I lost her.

I tell them that I need to finally get my bag from the car and put it in my room, so Beth takes Judith back and I pass Carl without giving him a second glance. I'm halfway to the car when I hear Carl's footsteps behind me. I jog to the car and pull out my bag, already feeling tears prick at my eyes. I promised her I would be strong. I can't just cry whenever I think of her. I slam the door shut and turn around, running straight into Carl. "Oh, God, sorry," I say, trying to move past him. He grabs a hold of my arms and looks at me. "Hey," he says, obvious concern in his voice.

I look up at him. "What's wrong? You're crying," he says, putting a thumb on my cheek to wipe away a tear I didn't even know was there.

"Look, Carl, I get that you want to help and stuff, but I just need to go," I say, breaking free from him and just letting the tears fall, racing my way back up to my room. I reach into my large bag and pull out the clothes, folding them and piling them to be washed later. I take out my dead MP3 player and put it on my dresser, and also take out my blanket my aunt sewed for me when I was four and place it on my bed. I leave a couple more things in the bag, figuring I'll get organized later. I search into a separate pocket and find three picture frames and one seperate picture.

The first picture is of me, my best friend, Sam, and her boyfriend, Charlie, in front of our favorite ice cream shop, basically our favorite place in the world. We took it about two years after the apocalypse happened, going back for one last look. My dad took the picture with a poloroid camera, so the picture looks kind of funny, but that's all right. They're two best friends, and the best memories I ever had. I wish I knew where they were now.

The second picture is of Delilah and I. Our faces are pressed together and I'm cracking up laughing. I think that's why I liked it so much. We looked ridiculous. But that was just us. It was who we were.

The last picture is of my mom and dad on their fifteenth wedding anniversary, clanking their glasses of champagne together. They got married when they were twenty and had my sister when they were twenty-one. They looked great in this picture. In love. Happy. That's all that ever mattered to the two of them.

(Picture at top) The last picture isn't in a frame. It never was in a frame in the first place, but I didn't want to leave without it. It's of my mom. It's just her sitting in front of a piano and laughing. She got me that piano for my eigth birthday. Not that we were really piling up the cash, believe me, we weren't. She got my grandparents to pay for most of it. She knew how much I wanted to learn. My dad took that picture right after she had gotten done playing her very enthusiastic version of happy birthday to me while playing, which she then proceeded to break down and do beat-boxing. God, I loved that. I remember every moment of that to this day. I just hope I don't forget. On the back of the picture was written "To our wonderful and beautiful girl. May you put your talents to good use. Find heart, my darling." xoxo - Mom I take the picture and slide it into the bottom side of my pillow case. I hadn't really noticed I'd been crying the whole time I was looking at these.

I wiped the tears and stains away from my face and chained into some fresh clothes. I'm in the middle of taking the picture frames and lining them up the way I want when Carl walks in. I turn around and give him a sad smile. "I'm sorry," I say, knowing he was just trying to help and I pushed him away. "It's fine. I just want to know what's up with you?" I sit down on the edge of my bed and he notices the picture frames. He walks over to the dresser and picks one up. "This you?" he says, turning it so I can see. "Yeah. That's me and my older sister, Delilah." I kick my feet around under and out of the bottom of my bed. I feel like he's inspecting my personal life. I don't know why.

"This is you, too," he says, picking up the picture of Me, Sam and Charlie. I tell him about them, and he just looks at the picture the entire time, nodding occasionally. He puts the picture back down and picks up the last one. "Who's this?" He walks over and sits next to me, and we both push our backs up against the concrete wall behind us. I cross my legs and take the picture into my hands.

"This is my dad, David, and my mom. Valerie." He must be able to just feel the awful feeling coming out of me, and puts a hand on my arm to comfort me. The second his skin makes contact with mine just makes me feel like I want to cry. And I know why. Because this boy, for whatever reason, feels like home. And right now, home just hurts. I burst into tears, and he just brings my head into his chest, letting me cry into him. I do just that, feeling unbelievably weak. Maybe I just need to feel like this now. Get it out of the way. Either way, I'm hoping I won't for much longer.